In any communication system, high levels of noise may result in data loss or significant degradation of the quality of data such that the resulting data is unusable. For example, in video or voice applications, noise may cause video data to be unviewable and voice data to be inaudible. Further in the prior art, data traffic that experiences significant noise conditions may require boosting signal strength, which reduces system capacity, or retries, which expends limited network resources.
Current methods of detecting noisy communication links are overly simplistic given the complex and varying nature of noise encountered. For example, current methods of detecting noise do not take into account the Gaussian distribution of noise and its accompanying unpredictability.
Accordingly, there is a need not met in the prior art, for a method and apparatus of monitoring noise on a communication link.
Elements in the Figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the Figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Furthermore, the terms “first”, “second”, and the like herein, if any, are used inter alia for distinguishing between similar elements and not necessarily for describing a sequential or chronological order. Moreover, the terms “front”, “back”, “top”, “bottom”, “over”, “under”, and the like in the Description and/or in the Claims, if any, are generally employed for descriptive purposes and not necessarily for comprehensively describing exclusive relative position. Any of the preceding terms so used may be interchanged under appropriate circumstances such that various embodiments of the invention described herein may be capable of operation in other configurations and/or orientations than those explicitly illustrated or otherwise described.